Editors' Review

Where most other docks fail, RocketDock soars. The Mac-style program dock and launcher for Windows 2000, XP, and Vista has it all, from a smooth installation to flawless icon transitions and an unobtrusive footprint.

The app is loaded with options. The dock can live on any of the four edges of your monitor, you can set it to always be on top, on bottom, autohide, or be ever-present. It comes with more than 20 skins; fonts and colors are fully customizable, as is the icon order; and you can choose which icons are displayed, independent of the program's actual icon. RocketDock's publisher is also growing a community around the program, and the app's Web site has areas where you can download more icons, widgets, and skins to enhance and further customize your experience.

One drawback of the program is that the main settings menu is not where you go to add in and configure these extras. Instead, they're accessible from a secondary settings menu available only by right-clicking on the dock itself. It's frustrating, but not a major problem, and hopefully can be addressed in future updates.

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Publisher's Description

RocketDock is a smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. Now with added Taskbar support your minimized windows can appear as icons on the dock. This allows for better productivity and accessibility.

Hasn't broken, crashed, or in any way not functioned exactly as desired in four years of constant use.

Very thorough customization options including icons, animations, position on screen, size, font, and response time.

Cons

Default icons and animations are, quite frankly, terrible. Highly recommend downloading a new icon pack from DeviantArt ASAP as well as going through all of the options and tailoring the program to your preference.

Summary

Highly reliable and customizable software with great potential, just don't be put off by the hideous default settings and put the time in to customize it to your own preference.

worked beautifully for a while, loved the way i could add icon links from anywhere and instantly have access to all my favorite programs. loved the customizability of the dock. all the different skins and themes.

Cons

and then one fine day it started crashing all the time. yes i was using the 135 version the newest. apparently once you add a certain amount of icons the program has a tendency to crash. it was constanytly popping up an error stating that it " couldnt load all of my icons, would i like to load the default icons?" if i said yes then it loaded the defaults all right, not one of my personal icons was present and i had to add them all all over again. and if i said no, then the program wouldnt load at all.

Summary

at one time i would have recommended this program to any one hands down. now, with all the troubles ive had im switching to something else. you can try it and if you have no problems, fine. but be prepared to lose all you hard work, you've been warned

Updated on Jul 18, 2013

one caveat, i am using a 64 bit windows 7 OS, maybe rocketdock just doesnt like 64bit systems.

Had a problem getting it to launch on the startup even with the run at startup box checked. The solution was copying, and pasting the shortcut in the "start" menu under "all programs" "startup". Hope that helps if you get the same problem.

RocketDock is by far the best little time saver you could have. It sits in the background working constantly, keeping everything where it belongs and nothing is ever out of place. You don't have to do anything with RocketDock. RocketDock is like having a staff of workers that get the job done but yet you never see them. You feel safe and secure and you can put all worries aside with RocketDock. I never even think about RocketDock because I never have to do anything with RocketDock, RocketDock does it ALL for me. I even forgot I even had RocketDock installed on my Computer. RocketDock makes life so much easier and smooth sailing, worry free and rest assured!Sometimes I have to click on the little world icon in the task bar because I forgot what it was for...but RocketDock goes above and beyond to do ALL of the boring, time consuming job for me and that makes all the difference in the world.Maybe that's why their Favicon is a world. Wonderful product indeed!!!

Cons

Well, I must say that I haven't really come across any problems with RocketDock yet. I really can't see where I will ever come across any problems because RocketDock is like having a watchdog that watches over everything for me so I can go play...whatever it is that I play, with no worries.

Summary

RocketDock has been a wonderful Tool for me and I say that because, having to go into your System Tools and enter the ever dreaded Defragmenter means "How much time is this going to take,that I don't have to lose?" I absolutely hated to defrag my Computer because it was always at a time when I was doing something important and all of a sudden, my computer wouldn't work right. So I would go and check if I needed to defragment and the answer was always yes. Most of the time this defragmentation period was when I was doing something that have to have my undivided attention and concentration and if I had to stop to defrag, I would lose my train of thought. It would absolutely drive me bonkers. Now....with RocketDock, I don't have to do one iota of anything because RocketDock is constantly on, working in the background for me and keeping my computer running "smooth". I would by far recommend RocketDock to everyone, if you need a life with one less problem in it and you don't have the patience to sit and wait for defrag to defrag. And I didn't, so I have much more time to get my things done faster and have more time to do enjoyable things in life that doesn't involve a computer.

I wanted to use docking applications for the sole purpose of launching applications and remove clutter from my desktop. I tried Objectdock and Winstep Nexus before, and to be honest, they looked prettier, but I noticed my computer became slower, and there were some features I really wouldn't like to have. So I switched to Rocketdock, it's simple and straightforward, plus there are also addons and themes that could somehow match those I used in other dock apps. And now I think it's better and easier to use than the others that I tried.

Cons

Can't create or use multiple docks, I'm really not sure if it doesn't have this feature. Other than that, everything is perfect, after all I only need one dock.

Summary

It's my first time to use Rocketdock, so as of now I'm trying to customize it based on my needs. I was surprised that the last update to it was in 2008 because it's working really great!

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